Eurocrats look set to wake up to their worst nightmare today as exit polls in the Italian general election showed an across the board surge for eurosceptic populist and anti-immigration parties, especially the Five Star Movement and Northern League, and a massive collapse in support for the Europhile Democratic Party and its centre-left allies. Eurosceptic parties vote share was projected to pass the 50% as Italian voters flooded to the polls to reject pro-EU parties.

The M5S was projected to win somewhere between 124 and 134 seats in Italy’s lower house of Parliament, the Chamber of Deputies and between 63 and 73 seats in the Italian Senate. Meanwhile, Silvio Burlesconi’s Forza Italia was predicted to win between 56-66 Deputies 26-36 Senators, exactly the same number as the Northern League. Matteo Renzi’s Democratic Party whose defeat in a constitutional referendum ushered in the end of his government meanwhile faced humiliation. Mr Renzi proudly proclaimed a vote for him would be a vote for the United States Of Europe – voters in Italy clearly have rejected his vision.

However, despite looking likely to emerge as the largest Party, the role that the M5S government will have in government is unclear. The centre-right bloc led by Mr Berlusconi looks set to produce the next governing bloc as a hung parliament looms large on the horizon. However, Alfonso Bonafede, a close ally of 5-Star leader Luigi Di Maioy said that the M5S will be a “pillar” of the legislature.

The political situation is extremely fluid with a complicated electoral system adding to the uncertainty. However, what is clear is that we are witnessing in Italy yet another populist uprising against the EU and the authoritarian dream of a ‘United States of Europe’ has been dealt a crushing and potentially terminal blow.

3 Responses

The EU cannot be surprised about this vote result from Italy. There were warnings a plenty, but the EU Commissioners were so far up themselves with talk about The United States of Europe, and EU Armed Forces, that they totally forgot to win support from the Italian people. Now, a bit late, they will have to do some thinking !
Maggie May should now become emboldened, and act like the PM of UK/GB. Lets face it, this will be a change for the better no matter what happens in Europe ! Unless we get EVERYTHING that we want, we really should leave straight away and have nothing more to do with the EU. If we took that line, it would not only embolden May, it would also do the same for other members of the club, and probably do away with the EU nonsense !
I think that the Commissioners have little real ability, and that was shown in an announcement about how subscriptions would have to be raised, should we leave. Note how cutting back on costs were not mentioned by these fools, after all that is the sort of thing that businesses do, and it can’t be expected of an almighty EU, can it ?
Decisive action by May now, would be to everyones best interests, but I guess she will dither as she always does !

I must confess that I know very little of Italian Politics, so maybe someone with more knowledge than I do will enlighten me. For example, do the Italians have PR or first past the post, also how many seats are there in each “house”, percentages of the vote would be handy for comparison purposes. Certainly the result, however it is expressed is a leg up for the Eurosceptic cause. While the result is, without doubt cause for alarm among the EU members, Mr Renzi, of the Democratic Party, made a significant statement about a vote for him being a vote for the United States of Europe. For over 40 years some UK politicians including those like Ted Heath and Ken Clarke, have maintained the fiction that the EU had no Nation State ambitions, while supporting ever closer integration with common Foriegn Policy, Taxation and Armed Forces, with the latest news that Mrs May seems to support the European Arrest Warrant, which means that a Brit could be arrested by French or German police for a so called offence committed in the UK against EU Law, but not against British Law, and extradited to face trial in the EU under the ECJ. It strikes me as odd that a Party that is, in it’s name “Democratic” enthusiastically supports the definitely non Democratic EU. Maybe we should look to our fellow Eurosceptics in Italy for ideas to have similar gains here. I never thought that I would look to the Italians whose politics are, let’s face it, a total basket case for inspiration. If this success is a sign of things to come, surely it is now well past the “Walk Away” time?

I got the impression when in Italy that there was two states going on the official one that has been elected and the other one the “People’s Party” comprising of the total population.
The country has a currency which only accounts for half the trade, the other is the black economy running on whatever.